Deathbed regrets

By Paul Connolly

October 11, 2019 — 11.42pm

The sun blazed through the window of Harriet’s palliative care room, engulfing her face, and no one thought to draw the curtains. Not her son, Max, who sat reading in a chair. Nor her eldest, Joan, who bickered with her husband on her mobile.

Illustration by Jim Pavlidis.Credit:

Not even her youngest, Tamara, the one she’d almost got right, who busied herself arranging the blanket on the bed instead of tilting Harriet’s head away from the light.

What she’d sacrificed for this lot. Her death imminent, eyes streaming, Harriet wished she’d spent more time at the office.